WHETHERit was due to the Christmas card look of his new house or merely to a desire to flaunt a romantic hospitality in the face of his eldest brother, it is certain that John had never before in his life gone so benevolently mad as during the week that preceded Christmas in the year 1910. Mindful of that afternoon in the town of Galton when he had tried to procure for Harold and Frida gifts of such American appearance as would excuse his negligence, he was determined not to expose himself for a second time to juvenile criticism, and in the selection of toys he pandered to every idiosyncrasy he had so far observed in his nephews and nieces. Thus, for Bertram he bought a large stamp album, several sheets of tropical stamps, a toy theater, representatives of every species in the great genus marbles, a set of expensive and realistic masks, and a model fireman's outfit. For Viola he filled a trunk with remnants of embroideries and all kinds of stuffs, placing on top two pairs of ebony castanets and the most professional tambourine he could find; and, in order that nature might not be utterly subordinated to art, he bought her a very large doll, rather older in appearance than Viola herself; in fact, almost marriageable. In the hope of obliterating the disappointment of those china animals, he chose for Frida a completely furnished dolls' house with garage and stables attached, so grand a house, indeed, that by knocking all the rooms into one, she could with slight inconvenience have lived in it herself; this residence he populated with gentleman-dolls, lady-dolls, servant-dolls, nurse-dolls, baby-dolls, horses, carriages, and motors; nor did he omit to provide a fishmonger's shop for the vicinity. For Harold he bought a butterfly collector's equipment, a vacuum pistol, a set of climbing-irons, a microscope, and at the lastmoment a juvenile diver's equipment with air pumps and all accessories, which was warranted perfectly safe, though the wicked uncle wondered if it really was.
"I don't want a mere toy for the bathroom," he explained.
"Quite so, sir," the shopman assented, with a bow. "This is guaranteed for any ordinary village pond or small stream."
For his grown-up relations John bought the kind of presents that one always does buy for grown-up relations, the kind of presents that look very ornamental on the counter, seem very useful when the shopman explains what they are for, puzzle the recipient and the donor when the shopman is no longer there, and lie about the house on small tables for the rest of the year. In the general odor of Russia leather that clung to his benefactions John hoped that Miss Hamilton would not consider too remarkable the attaché case that he intended to give her, nor amid the universal dazzle of silver object to the few little luxuries of the writing-desk with which he had enhanced it. Then there were the presents for the servants to choose, and he counted much on Miss Hamilton's enabling him to introduce into these an utilitarian note that for two or three seasons had been missing from his donations, which to an outsider might have seemed more like lures of the flesh than sober testimonials to service. He also counted upon her to persuade Mrs. Worfolk to accompany Maud down to Ambles: Elsa was to be left in Church Row with permission to invite to dinner the policeman to whom she was betrothed and various friends and relations of the two families.
When the presents were settled John proceeded to lay in a store of eatables and drinkables, in the course of which enterprise he was continually saying:
"I've forgotten for the moment what I want next, but meanwhile you'd better give me another box of Elvas plums."
"Another drum? Yes, sir," the shopman would reply, licking his pencil in a way that was at once obsequious and pedantic, though it was not intended to suggest more than perfect efficiency.
When the hall and the adjacent rooms at 36 Church Row had been turned into rolling dunes of brown paper, John rushed about London in a last frenzy of unbridled acquisitiveness to secure plenty of amusement for the children. To this end he obtained a few well-known and well-tried favorites like the kinetoscope and the magic lantern, and a number of experimental diversions which would have required a trained engineer or renowned scientist to demonstrate successfully. Finally he bargained for the wardrobe of a Santa Claus whose dignified perambulations round the Christmas Bazaar of a noted emporium had attracted his fancy on account of the number of children who followed him everywhere, laughing and screaming with delight. It was not until he had completed the purchase that he discovered it was not the exterior of the Santa Claus which had charmed his little satellites, but the free distribution of bags of coagulated jujubes.
"I expect I'd better get the Christmas tree in the country," said John, waist-deep in the still rising drift of parcels. "I dare say the Galton shops keep those silver and magenta globes you hang on Christmas trees, and I ought to patronize the local tradesmen."
"If you have any local shopping to do, I'm sure you would be wise to go down to-day," Miss Hamilton suggested, firmly. "Besides, Mrs. Worfolk won't want to arrive at the last minute."
"No, indeed, I shan't, Miss," said the housekeeper. "Well, I mean to say, I don't think we ever shall arrive, not if we wait much longer. We shall require a performing elephant to carry all these parcels, as it is."
"My idea was to go down in the last train on Christmas Eve," John argued. "I like the old-fashioned style, don't you know?"
"Yes, old-fashioned's the word," Mrs. Worfolk exclaimed. "Why, who's to get the house ready if we all go trooping down on Christmas Eve? And if I go, sir, you must come with me. You know how quick Mrs. Curtis always is tosnap any one up. If I had my own way, I wouldn't go within a thousand miles of the country; that's a sure thing."
John began to be afraid that his housekeeper was going back on her word, and he surrendered to the notion of leaving town that afternoon.
"I say, what is this parcel like a long drain-pipe?" he asked in a final effort to detain Miss Hamilton, who was preparing to make her farewells and leave him to his packing.
"Ah, it would take some finding out," Mrs. Worfolk interposed. "I've never seen so many shapes and sizes of parcels in all my life."
"They must have made a mistake," said John. "I don't remember buying anything so tubular as this."
He pulled away some of the paper wrapping to see what was inside.
"Ah, of course! They're two or three boxes of Elvas plums I ordered. But please don't go, Miss Hamilton," he protested. "I am relying upon you to get the tickets to Waterloo."
In spite of a strenuous scene at the station, in the course of which John's attempts to propitiate Mrs. Worfolk led to one of the porters referring to her as his mother, they managed to catch the five o'clock train to Wrottesford. After earnestly assuring his secretary that he should be perfectly ready to begin work again on Joan of Arc the day after her arrival and begging her on no account to let herself be deterred from traveling on the morning of Boxing Day, John sank back into the pleasant dreams that haunt a warm first-class smoking compartment when it's raining hard outside in the darkness of a December night.
"We shall have a green Christmas this year," observed one of his fellow travelers.
"Very green," John assented with enthusiasm, only realizing as he spoke that the superlative must sound absurd to any one who was unaware of his thoughts and hiding his embarrassment in theWestminster Gazette, which in the circumstances was the best newspaper he could have chosen.
John was surprised and depressed when the train arrived at Wrottesford to find that the member of the Ambles party who had elected to meet him was Hilda; and there was a long argument on the platform who should drive in the dogcart and who should drive in the fly. John did not want to ride on the back seat of the dogcart, which he would have to do unless he drove himself, a prospect that did not attract him when he saw how impatiently the mare was dancing about through the extreme lateness of the train. Hilda objected to driving with his housekeeper in the fly, and in the end John was compelled to let Maud and Mrs. Worfolk occupy the dogcart, while he and Hilda toiled along the wet lanes in the fly. It was decided to leave the greater portion of the luggage to be fetched in the morning, but even so it was after eight o'clock before they got away from the station, and John, when he found himself immured with Hilda in the musty interior of the hired vehicle was inclined to prophesy a blue Christmas this year. To begin with, Hilda would try to explain the system she had pursued in allotting the various bedrooms to accommodate the large party that was expected at Ambles. It was bad enough so long as she confined herself to a verbal exposition, but when she produced a map of the house, evidently made by Hugh on an idle evening, and to illuminate her dispositions struck away most of John's matches, it became exasperating. His brain was already fatigued by the puzzle of fitting into two vehicles four pieces, one of which might not move to the square next two of the remaining pieces, and another of which could not move backward.
"I leave it entirely to you," he declared, introducing at last into the intellectual torment of chess some of the happy irresponsibleness of bridge. "You mustn't set me these chess problems in a jolting fly before dinner."
"Chess!" Hilda sniffed with a shiver. "Draughts would be a better name."
She did not often make jokes, and before John had recovered sufficiently from his surprise to congratulate her with ahearty laugh, she was off again upon her querulous and rambling narration of the family news.
"If everythinghadbeen left to me, I might have managed, but Hugh's interference, apparently authorized by you, upset all my poor little arrangements. I need hardly say that Mama was so delighted to have her favorite at home with her that she has done everything since his arrival to encourage his self-importance. It's Hughie this and Hughie that, until I get quite sick of the sound of his name. And he's very unkind to poor little Harold. Apart from being very coarse and sarcastic in front of him, he is sometimes quite brutal. Only this morning he shot him in the upper part of the leg with a pellet from the poor little man's own air-gun."
John did laugh this time, and shouted "Merry Christmas!" to a passing wagon.
"I dare say it sounds very funny to you. But it made Harold cry."
"Come, come, Hilda, it's just as well he should learn the potentialities of his own instrument. He'll sympathize with the birds now."
"Birds," she scoffed. "Fancy comparing Harold with a bird!"
"It is rather unfair," John agreed.
"However, you won't be so ready to take Hugh's part when you see what he's been doing at Ambles."
"Why, what has he been doing?"
"Oh, never mind. I'd rather you judged for yourself," said Hilda, darkly. "Of course, I don't know what Hugh has been up to in London that you've had to send him down to Hampshire. I always used to hear you vow that you would have nothing more to do with him. But I know that successful people are allowed to change their minds more often than the rest of us. I know success justifies everything. And it isn't as if Hugh was grateful for your kindness. I can assure you that he criticizes everything you do. Any stranger who heard him talking about your plays wouldthink that they were a kind of disgrace to the family. As for Laurence, he encourages him, not because he likes him, but because Hugh fills him up with stories about the stage. Though I think that a clergyman who has got into such a muddle with his bishops would do better not to make himself so conspicuous. The whole neighborhood is talking about him."
"What is Laurence's latest?"
"Why, stalking about in a black cloak, with his hair hanging down over his collar, stopping people in quiet lanes and reciting Shakespeare to them. It's not surprising that half the county is talking about his behavior and saying that he was turned out of Newton Candover for being drunk when the bishop took a confirmation, andsomeeven say that he kept a ballet girl at the vicarage. But do you think that Edith objects? Oh, no! All that Laurence does must be right, because it's Laurence. She prays for him to get back his belief in the Church of England, though who's going to offer him another living I'm sure I don't know, so she might just as well spare her knees. And when she's not praying for him, she's spoiling him. She actually came out of her room the other morning with her finger up to her lips, because Laurence wasn't to be disturbed at that moment. I need hardly tell you I paid no attention and went on saying what I had to say to Huggins about the disgraceful way he's let the pears get so sleepy."
"It's a pity you didn't succeed in waking them up instead of Laurence," John chuckled.
"It's all very well for you to laugh, John, but if you could see the way that Edith is bringing up Frida! She's turning her into a regular little molly-coddle. I'm sure poor Harold does his best to put some life into the child, but she shrinks and twitches whenever he comes near her. I told Edith that it wasn't to be wondered at if Harold did tease her sometimes. She encourages him to tease her by her affectations. I used to think that Frida was quite a nice little girl when I only saw her occasionally, but she doesn't improve on acquaintance.However, I blame her mother more than I do her. Why, Edith doesn't even make the child take her cod-liver oil regularly, whereas Harold drinks his up like a little Trojan."
"Never mind," said John, soothingly. "I'm sure we shall all feel more cheerful after Christmas. And now, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I must keep quiet for the rest of the drive. I've got a scene to think about."
The author turned up the collar of his coat and retired into the further corner while Hilda chewed her veil in ruminative indignation until the mellow voice of Laurence, who had taken up a statuesque pose of welcome by the gate, broke the dank silence of the fly.
"Ah, John, my dear fellow, we are delighted to see you. The rain has stopped."
If Laurence had still been on good terms with his Creator, John might have thought from his manner that he had personally arranged this break in the weather.
"Is Harold there?" asked Hilda, sharply.
"Here I am, mother; I've just caught a Buff-tip, and it won't go into my poison-bottle."
"And what is a Buff-tip?" inquired Laurence in a tone of patronizing ignorance.
"Oh, it's a pretty common moth."
"Harold, darling, don't bother about moths or butterflies to-night. Come and say how d'ye do to dear Uncle John."
"I've dropped the cork of my poison-bottle. Look out, Frida, bother you, I say, you'll tread on it."
The combined scents of cyanide of potassium and hot metal from Harold's bull's-eye lantern were heavy upon the moist air; when the cork was found, Harold lost control over the lantern which he flashed into everybody's face in turn, so that John, rendered as helpless as a Buff-tip, walked head foremost into a sopping bush by the side of the path. However, the various accidents of arrival all escaped being serious, and the thought of dinner shortened the affectionate greetings. Remembering how Hugh had paid out Harold withhis own air-gun, John greeted his youngest brother more cordially than he could ever have supposed it was possible to greet him again.
By general consent, the owner of the house was allowed to be tired that evening, and all discussion of the Christmas preparations was postponed until the next day. Harold made a surreptitious attempt to break into the most promising parcel he could find, but he was ill rewarded by the inside, which happened to be a patent carpet sweeper.
Before old Mrs. Touchwood went to bed, she took John aside and whispered:
"They're all against Hughie. But I've tried to make the poor boy feel that he's at home, and dear Georgie will be coming very soon, which will make it pleasanter for Hugh, and I've thought of a nice way to manage Jimmie."
"I think you worry yourself needlessly over Hugh, Mama; I can assure you he's perfectly capable of looking after himself."
"I hope so," the old lady sighed. "All my patience came out beautifully this evening. So I hope Hughie will be all right. He seemed to think you were a little annoyed with him."
"Did he tell you why?"
"Not exactly, but I understand it was something to do with money. You mustn't be too strict with Hugh about money, John. You must always remember that he hasn't got all the money he wants, and you must make allowances accordingly. Ah, dear, peace on earth, good-will towards men! But I don't complain. I'm very happy here with my patience, and I dare say something can be done to get rid of the bees that have made a nest in the wall just under my bedroom window. They're asleep now, but when they begin to buzz with the warm weather Huggins must try and induce them to move somewhere else. Good-night, my dear boy."
Next morning when John leaned out of his window to inhale the Hampshire air and contemplate his domain he wasshocked to perceive upon the lawn below a large quadrangular excavation in which two workmen were actually digging.
"Hi! What are you doing?" he shouted.
The workmen stared at John, stared at one another, stared at their spades, and went on with their digging.
"Hi! What the devil are you doing?"
The workmen paid no attention; but the voice of Harold came trickling round the corner of the house with a gurgle of self-satisfaction.
"Ididn't do it, Uncle John. I began geology last week, but I haven't dug upanything. Mother wouldn't let me. It was Uncle Hugh and Uncle Laurence. Mother knew you'd be angry when you saw what a mess the garden was in. It does look untidy, doesn't it? Huggins said he should complain to you, first thing. He says he'd just as soon put brown sugar on the paths asthatgravel. Did you know that Ambles is built on a gravel subsoil, Uncle John? Aren't you glad, because my geology book says that a gravel subsoil is the healthiest...."
John removed himself abruptly out of earshot.
"What is that pernicious mess on the front lawn?" he demanded of Hugh half-an-hour later at breakfast.
"Ah, you noticed it, did you?"
"Noticed it? I should think I did notice it. I understand that you're responsible."
"Not entirely," Laurence interposed, gently. "Hugh and I must accept a joint responsibility. The truth is that for some time now I've felt that my work has been terribly at the mercy of little household noises, and Hugh recommended me to build myself an outside study. He has made a very clever design, and has kindly undertaken to supervise its erection. As you have seen, they are already well on with the foundations. The design which I shall show you after breakfast is in keeping with the house, and of course you will have the advantage of what I call my little Gazebo when I leave Ambles. Have I told you that I'm considering abrief experience of the realities of the stage? After all, why not? Shakespeare was an actor."
If John had been eating anything more solid than a lightly boiled egg at the moment he must have choked.
"You can call it your little Gazebo as much as you like, but it's nothing but a confounded summerhouse," he shouted.
"Look here, Johnnie," said Hugh, soothingly. "You'll like it when it's finished. This isn't one of Stevie's Gothic contortions. I admit that to get the full architectural effect there should be a couple of them. You see, I've followed the design of the famous dovecotes at...."
"Dovecoats be damned," John exploded. "I instructed you to prepare the house for Christmas; I didn't ask you to build me a new one."
"Laurence felt that he was in the way indoors," Edith explained, timidly.
"The impression was rather forced upon me," said Laurence with a glance at Hilda, who throughout the dispute had been sitting virtuously silent; nor did she open her thin lips now.
"He was going to pay for his hermitage out of the money he ought to have made from writingLamp-posts," Edith went on in a muddled exposition of her husband's motives. "He wasn't thinking of himself at all. But of course if you object to his building this Gas—oh, I am so bad at proper names—he'll understand. Won't you, dear?"
"Oh, I shall understand," Laurence admitted with an expression of painfully achieved comprehension. "Though I may fail to see the necessity for such strong language."
Frida wiggled in the coils of an endless whisper from which her mother extricated her at last by murmuring:
"Hush, darling, Uncle John is a little vexed about something."
Hilda and her son still sat in mute self-righteousness; and Grandmama, who always had her breakfast in bed, was not present to defend Hugh.
"If it had been anywhere except on the lawn right in front of my room," John began more mildly.
"We tried to combine suitability of site with facility of access," Laurence condescended to explain. "But pray do not say another word," he added, waving his fingers like magic wands to induce John's silence. "The idea of my little Gazebo does not appeal to you. That is enough. I do not grudge the money already spent upon the foundations. Further discussion will irritate us all, and I for one have no wish to disturb the harmony of the season." Then exchanging his tone of polite martyrdom for the suave jocularity of a vicar, he continued: "And when are we to expect our Yuletide guests? I hear that the greater portion of your luggage is still in the care of the station-master at Wrottesford. If I can do anything to aid in the transport of what rumor says is our Christmas commissariat, do not hesitate to call upon my services. I am giving the Muse a holiday and am ready for anything. Harold, pass the marmalade, please."
John felt incapable of further argument with Laurence and Hugh in combination, and having gained his point, he let the subject of the Gazebo drop. He was glad that Miss Hamilton was not here; he felt that she might have been rather contemptuous of what he tried to believe was "good-nature," but recognized in his heart as "meekness," even "feebleness."
"When are Cousin Bertram and Cousin Viola coming?" Harold asked.
"Wow-wow-wow!" Hugh imitated, and he was probably expressing the general opinion of Harold's re-entry into the breakfast-table conversation.
"For goodness' sake, boy, don't talk about them as if they were elderly colonial connections," John commanded with the resurgent valor that Harold always inspired. "Bertram and Viola are coming to-morrow. By the way, Hilda, is there any accommodation for a monkey? I don't know for certain, but Bertram talked vaguely of bringing a monkeydown. Possibly a small annex could be attached to the chickenhouse."
"A monkey?" Edith exclaimed in alarm. "Oh, I hope it won't attack dear Frida."
"I shall shoot him, if he does," Harold boasted. "I shot a mole last week."
"No, you didn't, you young liar," Hugh contradicted. "It was killed by the trap."
"Harold is always a very truthful little boy," said his mother, glaring.
"Is he? I hadn't noticed it," Hugh retorted.
"Far be it from me to indulge in odious comparisons," Laurence interposed, grandly. "But I cannot help being a trifle—ah—tickled by so much consideration's being exhibited on account of the temporary lodging of a monkey and so much animus—however, don't let us rake up a disagreeable topic."
John thought it was a pity that his brother-in-law had not felt the same about raking up the lawn when after breakfast he was telling Huggins to fill in the hole and hearing that it was unlikely to lose the scar for a long time.
"You could have knocked me down with a feather, sir, when they started in hacking away at a lovely piece of turf like that."
"I'm sure I could," John agreed, warmly.
"But what's done can't be undone, and the best way to mend a bad job would be to make a bed for ornamental annuals. Yes, sir, a nice bed in the shape of a star—or a shell."
"No thanks, Huggins, I should prefer grass again, even if for a year or two the lawn does look as if it had been recently vaccinated."
John's Christmas enthusiasm had been thoroughly damped by the atmosphere of Ambles and he regretted that he had let himself be persuaded into coming down two days earlier than he had intended. It had been Mrs. Worfolk's fault, and when his housekeeper approached him with a complaintabout the way things were being managed in the kitchen John told her rather sharply that she must make the best of the present arrangements, exercise as much tact as possible, and remember that Christmas was a season when discontent was out of fashion. Then he retreated to the twenty-acre field to lose a few golf-balls. Alas, he had forgotten that Laurence had proclaimed himself to be in a holiday humor and was bored to find that this was so expansive as to include an ambition to see if golf was as difficult as people said.
"You can try a stroke if you really want to," John offered, grudgingly.
"I understand that the theory of striking involves the correct application of the hands to the club," said the novice. "I set much store by the old adage that well begun is half done."
"The main thing is to hit the ball."
"I've no doubt whatever about being able to hit the ball; but if I decide to adopt golf as a recreation from my dramatic work I wish to acquire a good style at the outset," Laurence intoned, picking up the club as solemnly as if he was going to baptize it. "What is your advice about the forefinger of my left hand? It feels to me somewhat ubiquitous. I assume that there is some inhibition upon excessive fidgeting."
"Keep your eye on the ball," John gruffly advised him. "And don't shift your position."
"One, two, three," murmured Laurence, raising the club above his shoulder.
"Fore!" John shouted to a rash member of the household who was crossing the line of fire.
A lump of turf was propelled a few feet in the direction of the admonished figure, and the ball was hammered down into the soft earth.
"You distracted me by counting four," Laurence protested. "My intention was to strike at three. However, if at first you don't succeed...."
But John could stand no more of it and escaped to Galton,where he bought a bushel of lustrous ornaments for the Christmas tree that was even now being felled by Huggins in a coppice remote from Harold's myopic explorations. Then for two days the household worked feverishly and unitedly in a prevalent odor of allspice; the children were decoyed from the house while the presents were mysteriously conveyed to the drawing-room, which had been consecrated to the forthcoming revelry; Harold, after nearly involving himself in a scandal by hiding himself under the kitchen-table during one of the servant's meals in order to verify the cubic contents of their several stockings, was finally successful in contracting with Mrs. Worfolk for the loan of one of hers; Frida whispered as ceaselessly as a grove of poplars; everybody's fingers were tattooed by holly-pricks; and the introduction of so much decorative vegetation into the house brought with it a train of somnambulant insects.
On Saturday afternoon the remaining guests arrived, and when John heard Bertram and Viola shouting merrily up and down the corridors he recognized the authentic note of Christmas gayety at last. James was much less disagreeable than he had expected, and did not even freeze Beatrice when she gushed about the loveliness of the holly and reminded everybody that she was countrified herself; Hilda and Eleanor were brought together by their common dread of Hugh's apparent return to favor; George exuded a gross reproduction of the host's good-will and wandered about the room reading jokes from the Christmas numbers to those who would listen to him; Laurence kissed all the ladies under the mistletoe, bending down to them from his majesty as patronizingly as in the days of his faith he used to communicate the poor of the parish; Edith clapped her hands every time that Laurence brought off a kiss and talked in a heart-felt tremolo about the Christmas-tides of her girlhood; Frida conceived an adoration for Viola; Hugh egged on Bertram to tease, threaten, and contradict Harold on every occasion; Grandmama in a new butter-colored gown glowed in the lamplight, and purred over her fertility, as if on the dayshe had accepted Robert Touchwood's hand nearly half a century ago she had foreseen this gathering and had never grumbled when she found she was going to have another baby.
"Snapdragon will be ready at ten," John proclaimed, "and then to bed, so that we're all fit for Christmas Day."
He was anxious to get the household out of the way, because he had formed a project to dress himself up that night as Santa Claus and, as he put it to himself, stimulate the children's fancy in case they should be awake when their stockings were being filled.
The clock struck ten; Mrs. Worfolk gave portentous utterance to the information that the snapdragon was burning beautiful; there was a rush for the pantry where the ceremony was to take place. Laurence picked out his raisins as triumphantly as if he were snatching souls from a discredited Romish purgatory. Harold notwithstanding his bad sight seemed to be doing well until Bertram temporarily disabled him by snatching a glowing raisin from the fiercest flame and ramming it down his neck. But the one who ate most of all, more even than Harold, was George, whose fat fingers would scoop up half-a-dozen raisins at a go, were they never so hot, until gradually the blue flames flickered less alertly and finally went out altogether in a pungency of burnt brandy.
"Half-past ten," John, who was longing to dress himself up, cried impatiently.
His efforts to urge the family up to bed were rather interfered with by Laurence, who detained Eleanor with numerous questions about going on the stage with a view to correcting a few technical deficiencies in his dramatic craftsmanship.
"I'm anxious to establish by personal experience the exact length of the interval required to change one's costume, and also the distance from one's green-room to the—ah—wings. I do not aim high. I should be perfectly satisfied with such minor parts as Rosencrantz or Metellus Cimber. Perhaps,Eleanor, you will introduce me to some of your theatrical friends after the holidays? There is a reduced day return up to town every Thursday. We might lunch together at one of those little Bohemian restaurants where rumor says that an excellent lunch is to be had for one and sixpence."
Eleanor promised she would do all she could, because John evidently wanted her to go to bed, and he was the uncle of her children.
"Thank you, Eleanor. I hope that as a catechumen I shall do honor to you. By the way, you will be interested in the part of Pontius Pilate's wife in my play. In fact I'm hoping that you will—ah—interpret it ultimately."
"Did you ever think of writing a play about Polonius's wife?" James growled on his way upstairs. "Good-night."
When the grown-ups were safely in their rooms, John could not understand why the children were allowed to linger in the passage, gossiping and bragging; they would never go to sleep at this rate.
"I've got two cocoons of a Crimson-underwing," Harold was saying.
"Poof!" Viola scoffed. "What are they. Bertram touched the nose of a kangaroo last time we went to the Zoo."
"Yes, and I prodded a crocodile with V's umbrella," added Bertram, acknowledging her testimonial by awarding his sister a kind of share in the exploit.
"Well, I was bitten by a squirrel once," related Harold in an attempt to keep his end up. "And that was in its nest, not in a cage."
"A squirrel!" Viola sneered. "Why, the tallest giraffe licked Bertram's fingers with his tongue, and they stayed wet for hours afterwards."
"Well, so could I, if I went to the Zoo," Harold maintained with a sob at the back of his throat.
"No, you couldn't," Bertram contradicted. "Because your fingers are too smelly."
"Much too smelly!" Viola corroborated.
Various mothers emerged at this point and put a stop to the contest; the hallowed and gracious silence of Christmas night descended upon Ambles, and John went on tiptoe up to his bedroom.
"The beard, I suppose, is the most important item," he said to himself, when he had unpacked his costume.
It was a noble beard, and when John had fixed it to his cheeks with a profusion of spirit-gum, he made up his mind that it became him so well that he would grow one of his own, which whitening with the flight of time would in another thirty years make him look what he hoped to be—the doyen of romantic playwrights. The scarlet robe of Santa Claus with its trimming of bells, icicles, and holly and its ruching of snow had been made in a single piece without buttons, so that when John put it over his head the beard caught in the folds and part of it was thinned out by an icicle. In trying to disentangle himself John managed to get one sleeve stuck to his cheek much more firmly than the beard had ever been. Nor were his struggles to free himself made easier by the bells, which tinkled with every movement and made him afraid that somebody would knock at the door soon and ask if he had rung. Finally he got the robe in place, plucked several bits of sleeve from his cheek, renovated the beard, gathered together the apples, oranges, sweets, and small toys he had collected for the stockings, looked at his watch, decided that it was at least an hour too early to begin, and lay down upon his bed, where notwithstanding the ticking of his beard he fell asleep. When he woke, it was after one o'clock; the house was absolutely still. He walked cautiously to the little room occupied by Frida, turned the handle, and felt his way breathlessly along the bed to where the stocking should be hung. Unfortunately, the bed had somehow got twisted round or else his beard had destroyed his sense of direction, for while he was groping for the stocking he dropped an orange on Frida's face, who woke with a loud scream.
"Hush, my little dear," John growled in what he supposed to be the correct depth for the character. "It's only Santa Claus."
"Go away, go away," shrieked the horrified child.
John tried to strike a match to reassure her, and at the cost of a shower of apples on the floor, which sounded like bombs in the tense darkness, he managed to illuminate his appearance for an instant. The effect on Frida was appalling; she screamed a thousand times louder than before and fled from the room. John ran after her to stop her before she woke up everybody else and spoilt his fantasy; but he was hampered by the costume and Frida gained the sanctuary of her parents' bedroom.
"I only hope the little idiot will frighten them more than I frightened her," muttered John, hurrying as fast as he could back to his own room.
Suddenly from the hall below he heard a sound of sleigh-bells that put to shame the miserable little tinkle that attended his own progress; above the bells rose peals of hearty laughter, and above the laughter Hugh's voice could be heard shouting:
"Wake up! Wake up! Good people all! Here's Santa Claus! Santa Claus! Wake up!"
Just as John reached his own room, Hugh appeared at the head of the stairs brandishing a lighted torch, while close behind him dragging Harold's toboggan loaded with toys was a really superb Santa Claus.
John locked his door and undressed himself savagely, tearing off his beard in handfuls and flinging all the properties into a corner.
"Anyway, whoever it is," he said, "he'll get the credit of driving Frida mad. That's one thing. But who is it? I suppose it's Laurence showing us how well he can act."
But it was Aubrey Fenton whom Hugh had invited down to Ambles for Christmas and smuggled into the house like this to sweeten the unpleasant surprise. What annoyed John most was that he himself had never thought of using thetoboggan; but the new Santa Claus was an undoubted success with the children, and Frida's sanity was soon restored by chocolates. The mystery of the apples and oranges strewn about her bedroom remained a mystery, though Hilda tried to hint that her niece had abstracted them from the sideboard.
John was able to obtain as much sympathy as he wanted from the rest of the family over Hugh's importation of his friend. In fact they were so eager to express their disapproval of such calm self-assurance, not to mention the objectionable way in which he had woken everybody up in the middle of the night, that John's own indignation gradually melted away in the heat of their malice. As for Grandmama, she shut herself up in her bedroom on Christmas morning and threatened not to appear all day, so deep was her hatred of that young Fenton who was the author of all Hugh's little weaknesses—not even when she could shift the blame could she bring herself to call her son's vices and crimes by any stronger name. Aubrey, who lacked Hugh's serene insolence, wanted to go back to London and was so much abashed in his host's presence and so appreciative of what he had done in the affair of the check that John's compassion was aroused and he made the intruder welcome. His hospitality was rewarded, because it turned out that Aubrey's lifelong passion for mechanical toys saved the situation for many of John's purchases, nearly all of which he managed to set in motion; nor could it be laid to his account that one of the drawing-room fireworks behaved like an out-of-door firework, because while Aubrey was lighting it at the right end Harold was lighting it simultaneously at the other.
On the whole, the presentation of the Christmas gifts passed off satisfactorily. The only definite display of jealousy occurred over the diver's equipment given to Harold, which was more than Bertram notwithstanding his own fireman's outfit could suppress.
"I'll swop with you, if you like," he began mildly enough.
But Harold clutched the diver's mask to his breast and shrank from the proposal.
"I think you'd rather be a fireman," Bertram persisted. "Anybody can be a diver, can't they, V?"
Viola left her doll in a state of semi-nudity and advanced to her brother's support.
"You'd look much nicer as a fireman, Harold," she said, coaxingly. "I wish I could be a fireman."
"Well, you can if you like," he answered, sullenly, looking round with a hunted expression for his mother, who unluckily for her son was in another part of the house arguing with Mrs. Worfolk about the sauce for the plum-pudding.
"But wouldn't you rather wear a pretty brass helmet?" Viola went on.
"No, I wouldn't," said Harold, desperately wrapping himself in the rubber tubes that was so temptingly conspicuous a portion of his equipment.
"Oh, you little idiot," Viola burst out, impatiently. "What's the good of your dressing up as a diver? In those goggles you always look like a diver."
"I don't, do I, Frida?" Harold implored.
Now Frida was happy with her dolls'-house; she had no reason to be loyal to Harold, who had always treated her shamefully; but the spirit of the squaw rose in her breast and she felt bound to defend the wigwam against outside criticism. Therefore she assured Harold that in ordinary life he did not look in the least like a diver.
"Well," Bertram announced, throwing aside the last pretense of respecting property, "V and I want that diver's dress, because we often actTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."
"Well, I can actTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seatoo."
"No you can't because you haven't read it."
"Yes, I have."
"What a bung!" exclaimed Bertram. "You've only readA Journey to the Center of the EarthandRound the World in Eighty Days."
Then he remembered Frida's attitude. "Look here, if you take the fireman's uniform you can set fire to Frida's house."
Frida yelled her refusal.
"And put it out, you little idiot," Bertram added.
"And put it out," Viola echoed.
Frida rushed to her mother.
"Mother, mother, don't let them burn my dolls'-house! Mother, you won't, will you? Bertram wants to burn it."
"Naughty Bertram!" said Edith. "But he's only teasing you, darling."
"Good lummy, what a sneak," Bertram commented, bitterly, to his sister.
Viola eyed her cousin with the scorn of an Antigon.
"Beastly," she murmured. "Come on, Bertram, you don't want the diver's dress!"
"Rather not. And anyway it won't work."
"It will. It will," cried Harold, passionately. "I'm going to practice in a water-butt the first fine day we have."
It happened that John was unable to feel himself happily above these childish jealousies, because at that moment he was himself smarting with resentment at his mother's handing over to James all that she still retained of family heirlooms. His eldest brother already had the portraits, and now he was to have what was left of the silver, which would look utterly out of place in Hill Road. If John had been as young as Bertram, he would have spoken his mind pretty freely on the subject of giving James the silver and himself a checkered woolen kettle-holder. It was really too disproportionate, and he did mildly protest to the old lady that she might have left a few things at Ambles.
"But Jimmie is the eldest, and I expect him to take poor Hugh's part. The poor boy will want somebody when I'm gone, and Jimmie is the eldest."
"He may be the eldest, but I'm the one who has to look after Hugh—and very often James for that matter."
"Ah well, you're the lucky one, but Jimmie is the eldest and Hugh is the baby."
"But James hasn't any children."
"Nor have you, my dear boy."
"But I might have," said John.
If this sort of thing went on much longer, he would, too—dozens of children.
"Bertram," John called out. "Come here, my boy, and listen to me. When I go back to London, you shall have a diving-suit too if I can find another."
Eleanor tossed her head back like a victorious game-cock; she would have crowed, if she could.
"Dinner is ready," announced Hilda fresh from a triumph over Mrs. Worfolk about the sauce and happily ignorant of the dreadful relegation of her son. After an unusually large meal even for Christmas the company lay about the drawing-room like exhausted Roman debauchees, while the pink and green paper caps out of the crackers one by one fluttered from their brows to the carpet. Snores and the occasional violent whizz of an overwound toy were all that broke the stillness. At tea-time everybody woke up, and Bertram was allowed to put on his fireman's uniform in order to extinguish a bonfire that Huggins had hoped would burn slowly over the holidays. After a comparatively light supper games were played; drawing-room fireworks were let off; Laurence blacked his nose in the magic lantern; and George walking ponderously across the room to fetch himself a cigar was struck on the ear by a projectile from the vacuum pistol, the red mark of which was visible for some time even on his florid countenance. Then, when the children became too quarrelsome to be any longer tolerated out of bed, a bowl of punch was brought in and Auld Lang Syne was sung. After which everybody agreed that it had been a very merry Christmas, and Grandmama was led weeping up to bed.
The next morning about midday John announced that he was driving to Wrottesford for the purpose of meeting Miss Hamilton.
"For though it is holiday time, I must do a certain amount of work," he explained.
"Miss Hamilton?" said Grandmama. "And who may Miss Hamilton be?"
Hilda, Edith, Eleanor, and Beatrice all looked very solemn and mysterious; James chuckled; Hugh brightened visibly.
"Well, I suppose we mustn't mind a stranger's coming to spoil our happy party," Hilda sighed.
"Ah, this will be your new secretary of whom rumor has already spoken," said Laurence. "Possibly she will give me some advice on the subject of the typing of manuscripts."
"Miss Hamilton will be very busy while she is staying here," said John, curtly.
Everybody looked at everybody else, and there was an awkward pause, which was relieved by Harold's saying that he would show her where he thought a goldfinch would make a nest in spring.
"Dear little man," murmured his mother with a sigh for his childish confidence.
"ShallIdrive in to meet her?" Hugh suggested.
"No, thank you," said John, quickly.
"That's right, Johnnie," James guffawed. "You stick to the reins yourself."
JOHNdid not consider himself a first-class whip: if he had been offered the choice between swimming to meet his love like Leander, climbing into her father's orchard like Romeo, and driving to meet her with a dog-cart, he would certainly, had the engagement shown signs of being a long one, have chosen any mode of trysting except the last. This morning, however, he was not as usual oppressed by a sense of imperfect sympathy between himself and the mare; he did not think she was going to have hysterics when she blew her nose, nor fancy that she was on the verge of bolting when she tossed her chestnut mane; the absence of William the groom seemed a matter for congratulation rather than for regret; he felt as reckless as Phaeton, as urgent as Jehu, and the mare knew it. Generally, when her master held the reins, she would try to walk up steep banks or emulate in her capricious greed the lofty browsings of the giraffe; this morning at a steady swinging trot she kept to the middle of the road, passed two motor-cars without trying to box the landscape, and did not even shy at the new hat of the vicar's wife.
Later on, however, when John was safe in the station-yard and saw the familiar way in which Miss Hamilton patted the mare he decided not to take any risk on the return journey and in spite of his brother's parting gibe to hand over the reins to his secretary; nor was the symbolism of the action distasteful. How charming she looked in that mauve frieze! How well the color was harmonizing with the purple hedgerows! How naturally she seemed to haunt the woodland scene!
"Oh, this exquisite country," she sighed. "Fancy staying in London when you can write here!"
"It does seem absurd," the lucky author agreed. "But the house is very full at present. We shall be rather exposed to interruptions until the party breaks up."
He gave her an account of the Christmas festival, to which she seemed able to listen comfortably and appreciatively in spite of the fact that she was driving. This impressed John very much.
"I hope your mother wasn't angry at your leaving town," he said, tentatively. "I thought of telegraphing an invitation to her; but there really isn't room for another person."
"I'm afraid I can't say that she was gracious about my desertion of her. Indeed, she's beginning to put pressure on me to give up my post. Quite indirectly, of course, but one feels the effect just the same. Who knows? I may succumb."
John nearly fell out of the dog-cart.
"Give up your post?" he gasped. "But, my dear Miss Hamilton, the dog-roses won't be in bloom for some months."
"What have dog-roses got to do with my post?"
He laughed a little foolishly.
"I mean the play won't be finished for some months. Did I say dog-roses? I must have been thinking of the dog-cart. You drive with such admirable unconcern. Still, you ought to see these hedgerows in summer. Now the time I like for a walk is about eight o'clock on a June evening. The honeysuckle smells so delicious about eight o'clock. There's no doubt it is ridiculous to live in London. I hope you made it quite clear to your mother you had no intention of leaving me?"
"Ida Merritt did most of the arguing."
"Did she? What a very intelligent girl she is, by the way. I confess I took a great fancy to her."
"You told mother once that she frightened you."
"Ah, but I'm always frightened by people when I meet them first. Though curiously enough I was never frightened of you. Some people have told me thatIam frightening at first. You didn't find that did you?"
"No, I certainly did not. And I can't imagine anybody else's doing so either."
Although John rather plumed himself upon the alarm he was credited with inspiring at first sight, he did not argue the point, because he really never had had the least desire to frighten his secretary.
"And your relations don't seem to find you very frightening," she murmured. "Good gracious, what an assemblage!"
The dog-cart had just drawn clear of the beechwood, and the whole of the Ambles party could be seen vigilantly grouped by the gate to receive them, which John thought was a lapse of taste on the part of his guests. Nor was he mollified by the way in which after the introductions were made Hugh took it upon himself to conduct Miss Hamilton indoors, while he was left shouting for William the groom. If it was anybody's business except his own to escort her into the house, it was Hilda's.
"What a very extraordinary thing," said John, fretfully, "that theonlyperson who's wanted is not here. Where is that confounded boy?"
"I'm here," cried Bertram, responding to the epithet instinctively.
"Not you. Not you. I wanted William to take the mare."
When lunch was over John found that notwithstanding his secretary's arrival he was less eager to begin work again upon his play than he had supposed.
"I think I must be feeling rather worn out by Christmas," he told her. "I wonder if a walk wouldn't do you good after the journey."
"Now that's a capital notion," exclaimed Hugh, who was standing close by and overheard the suggestion. "We might tramp up to the top of Shalstead Down."
"Oh yes," Harold chimed in. "I've never been there yet. Mother said it was too far for me; but it isn't, is it, Uncle John?"
"Your mother was right. It's at least three miles too far," said John, firmly. "Oh, by the way, Hugh, I've beenthinking over your scheme for that summerhouse or whatever you call it, and I'm not sure that I don't rather like the idea after all. You might put it in hand this afternoon. You'd better keep Laurence with you. I want him to have it in the way he likes it, although of course I shall undertake the expense. Where's Bertram? Ah, there you are. Bertram, why don't you and Viola take Harold down to the river and practice diving? I dare say Mr. Fenton will superintend the necessary supply of air and reduce the chances of a fatal accident."
"But the water's much too cold," Hilda protested in dismay.
"Oh well, there's always something to amuse one by a river without actually going into the water," John said. "You like rivers, don't you, Fenton? I'm afraid we can't offer you a very large one, but it wiggles most picturesquely."
Aubrey Fenton, who was still feeling twinges of embarrassment on account of his uninvited stay at Ambles, was prepared to like anything his host put forward for his appreciation, and he spoke with as much enthusiasm of a promenade along the banks of the small Hampshire stream as if he were going to view the Ganges for the first time. John, having disposed of him, looked around for other possible candidates for a walk.
"You look like hard work, James," he said, approvingly.
"I've a bundle of trash here for review," the critic growled.
"I'm sorry. I was going to propose a stroll up Shalstead Down. Never mind. You'll have to walk into your victims instead." And, by gad, he would walk into them too, John thought, after that dinner yesterday.
Beatrice and Eleanor were not about; old Mrs. Touchwood was unlikely at her age to venture up the third highest elevation in Hampshire; Hilda was occupied with household duties; Edith had a headache. Only George now remained unoccupied, and John was sure he might safely risk an invitation to him; he looked incapable of walking two yards.
"I suppose you wouldn't care for a constitutional, George?" he inquired, heartily.
"A constitutional?" George repeated, gaping like a chub at a large cherry. "No, no, no, no. I always knit after lunch. Besides I never walk in the country. It ruins one's boots."
George always used to polish his own boots with as much passionate care as he would have devoted to the coloring of a meerschaum pipe.
"Well, if nobody wants to climb Shalstead Down," said John beaming happily, "what do you say, Miss Hamilton?"
A few minutes later they had crossed the twenty-acre field and were among the chalk-flecked billows of the rising downs.
"You're a terrible fraud," she laughed. "You've always led me to believe that you were completely at the mercy of your relations. Instead of which, you order them about and arrange their afternoon and really bully them into doing all sorts of things they never had any intention of doing, or any wish to do, what's more."
"Yes, I seemed to be rather successful with my strategy to-day," John admitted. "But they were stupefied by their Christmas dinner. None of them was really anxious for a walk, and I didn't want to drag them out unwillingly."
"Ah, it's all very well to explain it away like that, but don't ever ask me to sympathize with you again. I believe you're a replica of my poor mother. Her tyranny is deeply rooted in consideration for others. Why do you suppose she is always trying to make me give up working for you? For her sake? Oh, dear no! For mine."
"Butyoudon't forge my name and expect her to pay me back.Youdon't arrive suddenly and deposit children upon her doorstep."
"I dare say I don't, but for my mother Ida Merritt represents all the excesses of your relations combined in one person. I'm convinced that if you and she were to compare notes you would find that you were both suffering from acuteingratitude and thoroughly enjoying it. But come, come, this is not a serious conversation. What about the fourth act?"
"The fourth act of what?" he asked, vaguely.
"The fourth act of Joan of Arc."
"Oh, Joan of Arc. I think I must give her a rest. I don't seem at all in the mood for writing at present. The truth is that I find Joan rather lacking in humanity and I'm beginning to think I made a mistake in choosing such an abnormal creature for the central figure of a play."
"Then what have I come down to Hampshire for?" she demanded.
"Well, it's very jolly down here, isn't it?" John retorted in an offended voice. "And anyway you can't expect me to burst into blank verse the moment you arrive, like a canary that's been uncovered by the housemaid. It would be an affectation to pretend I feel poetical this afternoon. I feel like a jolly good tramp before tea. I can't stand writers who always want to be literary. I have the temperament of a country squire, and if I had more money and fewer relations I should hardly write at all."
"Which would be a great pity," said his secretary.
"Would it?" John replied in the voice of one who has found an unexpected grievance and is determined to make the most of it. "I doubt if it would. What is my work, after all? I don't deceive myself. There was more in my six novels than in anything I've written since. I'm a failure to myself. In the eyes of the public I may be a success, but in the depths of my own heart—" he finished the sentence in a long sigh, all the longer because he was a little out of breath with climbing.
"But you were so cheerful a few minutes ago. I'm sure that country squires are not the prey to such swift changes of mood. I think you must be a poet really."
"A poet!" he exclaimed, bitterly, with what he fancied was the kind of laugh that is called hollow. "Do I look like a poet?"
"If you're going to talk in that childish way I sha'n't say any more," she warned him, severely. "Oh, there goes a hare!"
"Two hares," said John, trying to create an impression that in spite of the weight of his despondency he would for her sake affect a light-hearted interest in the common incidents of a country walk.
"And look at the peewits," she said. "What a fuss they make about nothing, don't they?"
"I suppose you are comparing me to a peewit now?" John reproachfully suggested.
"Well, a moment ago you compared yourself to an uncovered canary; so if I've exceeded the bounds of free speech marked out for a secretary, you must forgive me."
"My dear Miss Hamilton," he assured her, "I beg you to believe that you are at liberty to compare me to anything you like."
Having surrendered his personality for the exercise of her wit John felt more cheerful. The rest of the walk seemed to offer with its wide prospects of country asleep in the winter sunlight a wider prospect of life itself; even Joan of Arc became once again a human figure.
It was to be feared that John's manipulation of his guests after lunch might have had the effect of uniting them against the new favorite; and so it had. When he and Miss Hamilton got back to the house for tea the family was obviously upon the defensive, so obviously indeed that it gave the impression of a sculptor's group in which each figure was contributing his posture to the whole. There was not as yet the least hint of attack, but John would almost have preferred an offensive action to this martyred withdrawal from the world in which it was suggested that he and Miss Hamilton were living by themselves. It happened that a neighbor, a colorless man with a disobedient and bushy dog, called upon the Touchwoods that afternoon, and John could not help being aware that to the eyes of his relations he and his secretary appeared equally intrusive and disturbing; themanner in which Hilda offered Miss Hamilton tea scarcely differed from the manner in which she propitiated the dog with a bun; and it would have been rash to assert that she was more afraid of the dog's biting Harold than of the secretary's doing so.
"Don't worry Miss Hamilton, darling. She's tired after her long walk. Besides, she isn't used to little boys. And don't make Mr. Wenlow's dog eat sugar if it doesn't want to."
Eleanor would ordinarily have urged Bertram to prove that he could achieve what was denied to his cousin. Yet now in the face of a common enemy she made overtures to Hilda by simultaneously calling off her children from the intruders.
"If I'd known that animals were so welcomed down here," James grumbled, "I should have brought Beyle with us."
It was not a polite remark; but the disobedient dog in an effusion of cordiality had just licked the back of James' neck, and he was not nearly so rude as he would have been about a human being who had surprised him, speaking figuratively, in the same way.
"Lie down, Rover," whispered the colorless neighbor with so rich a blush that until it subsided the epithet ceased to be appropriate.
Rover unexpectedly paid attention to the command, but chose Grandmama's lap for his resting place, which made Viola laugh so ecstatically that Frida felt bound to imitate her, with the result that a geyser of tea spurted from her mouth and descended upon her father's leg. Laurence rose and led his daughter from the room, saying:
"Little girls who choke in drawing-rooms must learn to choke outside."
"I'm afraid she has adenoids, poor child," said Eleanor, kindly.
"I know what that word means," Harold bragged with gloating knowledge.
"Shut up!" cried Bertram. "You know everything, glass-eyes. But you don't know there are two worms in your tea-cup."
"There aren't," Harold contradicted.
"All right, drink it up and see. I put them there myself."
"Eleanor!" expostulated the horrified mother. "Doyou allow Bertram to behave like this?"
She hurriedly poured away the contents of Harold's cup, which proved that the worms were only an invention of his cousin. Yet the joke was successful in its way, because there was no more tea, and therefore Harold had to go without a third cup. Edith, whose agitation had been intense while her husband was brooding in the passage over Frida's chokes, could stay still no longer, but went out to assist with tugs and taps of consolation. The colorless visitor departed with his disobedient dog, and soon a thin pipe was heard in vain whistles upon the twilight like the lisp of reeds along the dreary margin of a December stream.
John welcomed this recrudescence of maternal competition, which seemed likely to imperil the alliance, and he was grateful to Bertram and Viola for their provocation of it. But he had scarcely congratulated himself, when Hugh came in and at once laid himself out to be agreeable to Miss Hamilton.
"You've put the summerhouse in hand?" John asked, fussily, in order to make it perfectly clear to his brother that he was not the owner of Ambles.
Hugh shook his head.
"My dear man, it's Boxing Day. Besides, I know you only wanted to get rid of me this afternoon. By the way, Aubrey's going back to town to-night. Can he have the dog-cart?"
John looked round at the unbidden guest with a protest on his lips; he had planned to keep Aubrey as a diversion for Hugh, and had taken quite a fancy to him. Aubrey however, had to be at the office next day, and John was distressed to lose the cheerful young man's company, althoughit had been embarrassing when Grandmama had shuddered every time he opened his mouth. Another disadvantage of his departure was the direction of the old lady's imagination toward an imminent marriage between Hugh and Miss Hamilton, which was extremely galling to John, especially as the rest of the family was united in suggesting a similar conjunction between her and himself.
"I don't want to say a word against her, Johnnie," Grandmama began to mutter one evening about a week later when every game of patience had failed in turn through congestion of the hearts. "I'm not going to say she isn't a lady, and perhaps she doesn't mean to make eyes at Hughie."
John would have liked to tell his mother that she was on the verge of senile decay; but the dim old fetish of parental respect blinked at him from the jungle of the past, and in a vain search for a way of stopping her without being rude he let her ramble on.
"Of course, she has very nice eyes, and I can quite understand Hughie's taking an interest in her. I don't grudge the dear boy his youth. We all get old in time, and its natural that with us old fogies round him heshouldbe a little interested in Miss Hamilton. All the same, it wouldn't be a prudent match. I dare say she thinks I shall have something to leave Hugh, but I told her only yesterday that I should leave little or nothing."
"My dear Mama, I can assure you that my secretary—my secretary," John repeated with as much pomposity as might impress the old lady, "is not at all dazzled by the glamour of your wealth or James' wealth or George's wealth or anybody's wealth for that matter."
He might have said that the donkey's ears were the only recognizable feature of Midas in the Touchwood family had there been the least chance of his mother's understanding the classical allusion.
"I don't mean to hint that she'sonlyafter Hugh's money. I've no doubt at all that she's excessively in love with him."
"Really?" John exclaimed with such a scornfully ironical intonation that his mother asked anxiously if he had a sore throat.
"You might take a little honey and borax, my dear boy," she advised, and immediately continued her estimate of the emotional situation. "Yes, as I say, excessively in love! But there can't be many young women who resist Hugh. Why, even as a boy he had his little love affairs. Dear me, how poor papa used to laugh about them. 'He's going to break a lot of hearts,' poor papa used to say."
"I don't know about hearts," John commented, gruffly. "But he's broken everything else, including himself. However, I can assure you, Mama, that Miss Hamilton's heart is not made of pie-crust, and that she is more than capable of looking after herself."
"Then you agree with me that she has a selfish disposition. Iamglad you agree with me. I didn't trust her from the beginning; but I thought you seemed so wrapped up in her cleverness—though when I was young women didn't think it necessary to be clever—that you were quite blind to her selfishness. But Iamglad you agree with me. There's nobody who has more sympathy for true love than I have. But though I always said that love makes the world go round, I've never been partial to vulgar flirtations. Indeed, if it had to be, I'd rather they got engaged properly, even if it did mean a long engagement—but leading poor Hughie on like this—well, I must speak plainly, Johnnie, for, after all, I am your mother, though I know it's the fashion now to think that children know more than their parents, and, in my opinion, you ought to put your foot down. There! I've said what I've been wanting to say for a week, and if you jump down my throat, well, then you must, and that's all there is to it."
Now, although John thought his mother fondly stupid and was perfectly convinced when he asked himself the question that Miss Hamilton was as remote from admiring Hugh as he was himself, he was nevertheless unable to resist observingHugh henceforth with a little of the jealousy that most men of forty-two feel for juniors of twenty-seven. He was not prepared to acknowledge that his opinion of Miss Hamilton was colored by any personal emotion beyond the unqualified respect he gave to her practical qualities, and he was sure that the only reason for anxiety about possible developments between her and Hugh was the loss to himself of her valuable services.
"I've reached an age," he told his reflection, whose crow's-feet were seeming more conspicuous than usual in the clear wintry weather, "when a man becomes selfish in small matters. Let me be frank with myself. Let me admit that I do dislike the idea of an entanglement with Hugh, because Ihavefound in Miss Hamilton a perfect secretary whom I should be extremely sorry to lose. Is that surprising? No, it is quite natural. Curious! I noticed to-day that Hugh's hair is getting very thin on top. Mine, however, shows no sign of baldness, though fair men nearly always go bald before dark men. But I'm inclined to fancy that few observers would give me fifteen years more than Hugh."
If John had really been conscious of a rival in his youngest brother, he might have derived much encouragement from the attitude of all the other members of the family, none of whom seemed to think that Hugh had a look in. But, since he firmly declined to admit his secretary's potentiality for anything except efficient clerical work, he was only irritated by it.
"Are you going to marry Miss Hamilton?" Harold actually wanted to know one evening. He had recently been snubbed for asking the company what was the difference between gestation and digestion, and was determined to produce a conundrum that could not be evaded by telling him that he would not understand the answer. John's solution was to look at his watch and say it was time for him and Bertram to be in bed, hoping that Bertram would take it out of his cousin for calling attention to their existence. One of Bertram's first measures at Ambles had been to muffle,impede, disorganize and finally destroy the striking of the drawing-room clock. When this had been accomplished he could count every night on a few precious minutes snatched from the annihilation of bed during which he sat mute as a mummy in a kind of cataleptic ecstasy. The betrayer of this profound peace sullenly gathered up the rubbish with which he was wont to litter the room every night, and John saw Bertram's eye flash like a Corsican sharpening the knife of revenge. But whatever was in store for Harold lacked savor when John heard from the group of mothers, aunts, sisters, and sisters-in-law the two words "Children know" dying away in a sibilance of affirmative sighs.
After that it was small consolation to hear a scuffle outside in the hall followed by the crash of Harold's dispersed collections and a wail of protest. For the sake of a childish quarrel Hilda and Eleanor were not going to break up the alliance to which they were now definitely committed.
"It's so nice for poor Harold to have Bertram to play with him," volunteered one mother.
"Yes, and it's nice for Bertram too, because Harold's such a little worker," the other agreed.